Sports & Recreation

With the boxed body of the Big 12 Conference seemingly sawed into pieces and displaced from coast to coast, the embattled commissioner of our state's prestigious football fraternity dramatically, magically reassembled the body parts into a living, breathing, working whole. The result is that the Big 12 lives, rebooted and repackaged as a leaner, stronger-than-ever conference eternally bonded by tradition, unity and loyalty. Not bad for a conference that was twice pronounced dead during a chaotic May. Thankfully, Dan Beebe is David Blaine. His trick? Beebe didn't use smoke or mirrors or duct tape. He kept the Big 12 together via dollar bills. Greed begat the Big 12. Greed almost tore it apart. And in the end, mo' money saved it. Colorado and Nebraska will be gone come 2011 but, thanks to Beebe, the Big 12 will live on.